It’s certainly not my intention to defend Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy every day, but this latest flap is just odd. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew another distinction between herself and Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden or other terrorists in Afghanistan and […]
Congress and the administration have been scrambling this week to rush through some pretty significant changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a surprising disregard for concern about civil liberties. What’s the rush? Why act in haste on something so important? It turns out, officials knew something we didn’t: part of Bush’s legally dubious […]
Chances are you’ve noticed that the site looks a little different. OK, more than a little. Our old template seemed to contributing to server problems, and we thought, “If we’re going to overhaul the template, maybe it’s time to give the ol’ site a facelift, too.” The result is the newly-redesigned Carpetbagger Report. I suspect […]
Today’s edition of quick hits. * Having dispatched some holds, the Senate easily approved a sweeping ethics and lobbying reform bill this afternoon, after an 83 to 14 vote. With the House already having passed the measure, the bill now goes to Bush, who has not yet said whether he’ll sign the bill. Senate Majority […]
The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Karl Rove to testify on the U.S. Attorney purge scandal, and was supposed to appear this morning. Not surprisingly, the man the president affectionately calls “Turd Blossom” didn’t show up. It’s probably worth taking a moment to consider the White House’s explanation for blowing off a congressional subpoena. Dan Froomkin […]
Last week, Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a U.S. soldier in Iraq, was all the rage among conservatives. Beauchamp had used a pseudonym, “Scott Thomas,” to write a few pieces about the war and his experiences for The New Republic. His columns weren’t controversial until he published an item that noted some inappropriate behavior on the […]
The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack certainly know how to raise a fuss. On Monday, their op-ed on the war in Iraq appeared in the NYT and immediately became The Most Important Opinion Piece Ever, at least as far as Bush and his supporters are concerned. The two, who recently returned from an […]
A couple of days ago, I tried to figure out why, exactly, Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign offended me more than the other GOP candidates. After all, on a variety of social issues, Giuliani used to be surprisingly progressive — abortion rights, gay rights, gun control — and he even endorsed Mario Cuomo over George Pataki […]
I’ve been hesitant to write about the horrific highway bridge collapse in Minneapolis. It’s hard to even know where to start. Obviously, best wishes go out to the entire community, which has obviously been shaken by this awful tragedy. As a student of politics, I can’t help but notice that the Bush White House, scarred […]
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (.pdf) includes most of the predictable numbers — Bush is unpopular, Americans are uneasy about the economy, etc. — but respondents were also asked which party they trusted more to handle various policy issues. The Dems enjoy huge, double-digit advantages on every domestic issue (environment, health care, education, […]